The journey, however, was made without any opposition on the Earl’s part.  Mr. Percy spent a few weeks in Quebec, then the seat of Government, and travelling slowly westward arrived finally at his cousin’s house at Cacouna.  Mr. Bellairs was a barrister in good practice; his pretty wife, a Frenchwoman by descent, had brought him a fortune of considerable amount for the colonies, and knew how to make his house sufficiently attractive.  Both received their English relative with hearty hospitality, and thus it happened that the even current of Cacouna society was disturbed by the appearance of a visitor important enough to be a centre of attraction.

The morning after the picnic Mr. Bellairs proposed to his guest that they should drive along the river-bank to some rapids a few miles distant, which formed one of the objects to which visitors to Cacouna were in the habit of making pilgrimages.  They went accordingly, in a light waggon, and having duly admired the rapids, and the surrounding scenery, started for home.  Their way led past the Leighs’ house and the end of the lane leading to Mrs. Costello’s.  Mr. Bellairs pointed them both out to his companion.

“Do you see that cottage close to the river?  That is the nest of the prettiest bird in Cacouna; and in this long white house to the right lives my most hopeful pupil and my wife’s right hand, Maurice Leigh.”

“Miss Costello told me they were near neighbours,” said Mr. Percy.  “Has she no father or brother, that she seems to be so much the property of this pupil of yours?”

“No, indeed, poor girl!  Her father died, I believe, when she was an infant.  Mrs. Costello came here twelve years ago, a widow, with this one child.”

“Is young Leigh any relation?”

Mr. Bellairs laughed.  “Not at present certainly, though I have thought it would come to that by-and-by.  It is only a case of devoted friendship.  Alice Leigh, Maurice’s sister, and Lucia used to be always together; but poor Alice died, and I suppose Maurice felt bound to make up to Lucia for the loss.”

“Who or what are the Leighs then?  It is a queer-looking place.”

“Mr. Leigh is an Englishman; he came out here many years ago with a young wife; she is dead and so are all her children except Maurice.  Father and son live there together alone.”

“I don’t of course pretend to know how you manage such things in Canada, but it appears to me that a beautiful girl, like Miss Costello, might expect a better match, at least if one is to judge of the Leighs by their house.”

“I am not sure that we should call Maurice a bad match for any girl.  With a fair amount of brains, and a great capacity for work, he would be sure to get on in a country like ours, even if he were less thoroughly a good fellow.  He has but two faults; he is too scrupulous about trifles, and a little too Quixotic in his ideas about women.  However, my wife will never let me say that.”